The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Ok, back out testing the OM 90mm f/3.5 macro and look what appeared, a docile little firefly and it had the graciousness to move to this attractive bed of lichen so I could do a bit of focus bracketing. IRL it’s about 1 cm long. As part of the experiment I closed the lens down and increased the step distance in the bracketing settings.
I like the working distance which is more like my old 90mm adapted 35mm lens, but the optics are far superior and the handling is really nice with the focus clutch.
Specific Feedback
I think the stack is more successful with this than the last beetle as the DOF is wider - thoughts? Everything there look ok?
Lr for basic processing to get the right colors etc. Zerene for a PMax stack with some bg from the source images because it was blotchy. TIFF processed again with some dehaze and increased contrast as well as a bit of a crop. Punched up the blue and red channels in the calibration panel, but not a ton.
This is much better than your previous stack, Kris, with all the important parts in sharp focus. You’ve got hold of a lens there which is being used very successfully by macro photographers, and it’s clearly in the right hands. Did you use more than 15 bracketed shots here, as I think that held you back a bit in the other shot? Also you could maybe see how this lens works for you with diffused flash if you haven’t tried that yet. Lovely color contrasts here, and I like how the firefly’s orange part coordinates with the orange lichen.
Kris: This is flat out marvelous. A really nice subject and the branch and lichen make a perfect perch. Some of the features on the new lens sound like my new Sony which has sent my old faithful 200mm into semi-retirement. Of course equipment doesn’t make the shot but good equipment in the hands of an expert user can produce some impressive results. An accomplished pianist could do more with an out of tune barroom upright than i could do with a Steinway Grand. Keep the good stuff coming. >=))>
I did not see your previous post, but the DOF in this photo is excellent. How kind that the firefly moved onto some lichen colored like the colors on its head so that it would compliment the whole scene for you. The detail throughout is wonderful and I think you have your focus stacking dialed in.
The lighting is ideal and the stacking produced an excellent image. The short gold hairs on the elytra are nice and crisp and the colors of the two lichens work perfectly with the colors of the subject. Superb image…Jim
Kris, the firefly and it’s perch are excellent. The color coordination is great. In looking at the largest version, I see three minor issues, that you may or may not want to avoid in the future (or even fix here). I’ve uploaded a version with these three areas marked. The issues are;
There’s an increase in noise as you get closer to the branch.
There’s a subtle darker halo above these lichens.
There’s some blurring/duplication in here, possibly too big of a focus step(???) or maybe a tiny bit of motion by the firefly.
I don’t know the details of the camera software, but I’d expect that since the cpu knows the dof for the lens at the chosen aperature, it will automatically adjust the step size. I agree that some testing of the step size setting is good. I did that and found that the factory setting worked well.
Thanks @Mike_Friel , @Jim_Zablotny , @Youssef_Ismail , @Bill_Fach & @Mark_Seaver for the encouragement and advice. Eagle eye Mark spotted some areas that I should have seen, but was only working at 100% in Zerene for retouching and needed 200%. Doh. I think I’ve got those issues sorted and I spotted another that got fixed, too. My habit is to leave the Zerene session open so that when folks spot stuff like this, I can just do more retouching. Our cute little bug was very nice to land on this part of the branch after beetling off my finger from a less photogenic location.
Insofar as the auto-stepping goes, I don’t think the Lumix has a factory setting per se and I don’t know that it changes the distance according to any lens specs, so I’ll have to research that a bit., I’ve been messing with it by changing up the aperture and step # in the bracketing settings. My experience with the P/L 45mm macro is that for smooth backgrounds it needs to be open a bit more since it’s wider and so I use a smaller step and more photos depending on what the subject is like. With the OM 90mm I need to get more testing done. Since it’s a longer lens, the bg rendering is really different and I think I can stop down more which means I can use a larger step, but again, that needs more tinkering. With this beetle I used a bracketing method that starts at 0 with a chosen focus point and each subsequent shot is before or behind that point until the # of images is done. I find that for deep scenes where it’s difficult to tell what the nearest bit to the lens is, this method is more reliable than guessing at a close point and working straight backwards. As the G9M2 cycled through the task, I could see each frame on the screen and they looked crisp and with enough DOF to stack well. I only took 15 because it’s a median sort of number that will be manageable with moving subjects to prevent a lot of change from shot to shot. Of course I can always do more in one go, or change the focus point and do another session. All part of the experimentation fun!
I have not tried bracketing with flash, but I think the rig will do it. Batteries for the Godox are all charged up and ready to go for that part. For single shots handheld, the flash works just fine although I may go for a different diffuser in future.
